Cafe Bucky

Outside my window is a WABC news truck. Nothing is going on though,
so relax. I’m in the Starbucks across the street from WABC TV in New
York.

A couple of tables over sits Meg Ryan’s twin. How she looked 10 years
ago.

One taxi after another darts down Columbus. #2834 is double parked.
Wait, now it’s about to tangle with the WABC news truck.

A mafia type parks a big black Mercedes in front of the fire hydrant,
leaving the motor and lights on. Struts out to meander up and down
the sidewalk, puffing away on whatever cigarettes are in supply after
this afternoons hijacking (in broad daylight, of course) of an RJ
Reynolds truck. Ok, I made up the part about the hijacked cigarette
truck. This isn’t one of those hard-boiled detective novels.

You see, it would be exhausting to give a blow by blow of just sitting
in New York. This isn’t a particularly active location (67th and
Columbus) or time (9:45 pm, on a Monday).

But that buzz is there. It is all around, in the air. That “staying
up late and getting stuff done, bustling down the streets” buzz. The
people out for dinner buzz. They didn’t stuff enough over the
weekend. It’s too early to quit. Maybe by Wednesday. So many restaurants, so much wallet, and so little stomach.

But I’m going to take leave of it for a couple of weeks. I’m going to
California! You know, that other place I live. House and everything.
Time to throw on a Hawaiian shirt and fire up the Weber. Take my
family to the beach. Go for a hike. Go chill at the local brewery
(Dempseys).

But I’ll be back in New York after a couple of weeks. My contract got
extended until the end of June. And I don’t yet know where I’m going
to be living. Fun, eh? Well, it’s most likely going to be Manhattan
or Brooklyn.

Will I miss the buzz?

You know, I think not.

There is the undeniable excitement of living in Manhattan, of access
to so much, of losing so much sleep because it’s so easy to stay out
here. There’s always something new to discover, to explore.

And I’ll be back soon enough …

But damn - I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss being in my
own house. I miss the California ease of striking up random
conversations with strangers. There’s some New York stuff that I
clearly don’t “get”, and I know that in time, I just may. There’s
also some New York stuff that I’ll perpetually laugh at (little dogs,
the pretentiousness of some, the overly agressive types that have just
got to get on the train before others have gotten off, just to rattle
off a few).

Buzz or not, living on my own for the last few months has been one of
the tougher things I’ve done in my life. It makes me appreciate, all
the more, the role that friends and family play.

Must be spring.

I knew something was up when I saw the subway pull into the station
yesterday. Saturday morning and crowded. Happier faces than the grim
facades of workaday winter. Did these people lick a tab off of their
Metrocards? Could it be Aromatherapy on car 6131? Someone burning
incense? I did just see some Hare Krishnas in Astor Place.

Apple SoHo. Prince Street. Where did all of these people come from?
Hibernation must be over. All of the wimps who stayed in all winter
are suddenly out and about. Everyone’s shed a layer of clothes since
last weekend. The braver ones (like me today, in reaction to the
humid enclosure of yesterdays leather jacket) are out in short
sleeves. Cafes everywhere spill out onto the sidewalks.

It’s like New York suddenly changed. There’s still the
not-so-accessible facade that I notice so much, but it’s mellowed
(yeah, I can say “mellow”. I’m from fuckin California man!) a bit.
Hardened Gothamites are a couple of millimeters closer to smiling.

So maybe this is what New York is really like. I’ve lived in
Manhattan since December, so perhaps I’ve had a warped perception of
the people here. They’ve all been in “all bundled up, don’t fuck with
me cause I’m cold, just coping” mode. Do they emerge, like so many
grumpy groundhogs, into the warmth of spring as friendlier? more
talkative to strangers? I’m looking at Union Square, and vibe of
“happy and energetic” wafts across. I think I’ll head back over to
Central Park to see how many skaters have popped out to shake off
cobwebs.

Or is this weekend an abberation? a fluke?

Sign me, an amazed Californian, who was just getting used to New
Yorkers in their Winter Mode (and then they all go and change).

Manhattan is an obstacle course for pedestrians. A constant,
physical, in your face reminder that you can never relax and take
anything for granted.

What’s under that snow? It could be a manhole cover jutting out of
street a few inches (no doubt trying to escape, wanting to be with its
relatives in sunny climes with well paved streets) It could be a strip
of steel that’s come loose from a curb. Is it a pothole? A forgotten
ConEd worker in an access hole, still wondering when the foreman will
call for a break?

One of the coolest examples of uneven surfaces in the city is the
marble steps of the main library. Little grooves are worn into them
from countless visitors of wide-ranging ilk: literary types, tourists,
students so serious they will surely burst, some goof-offs, workers
playing hooky (sitting in the reading room, drafting their own damn
business plan, ready to chuck it and start their own gig, so that
their future employees will play hooky at the library), locals that
just need some space - a break from their 400 square feet back at the
sweltering 5th floor walkup, and a few that are just hoping that the
library can be some sort of book-bar pickup spot.

More uneveness. Watch those stairs in the subway station. Some of
them are out to get ya! Some of the tracks are uneven, giving rise
that ever popular “Subway Sway” dance (just think “drunken out of
control in-law”, except people on the subway are a lot quieter)

My apartment has uneven floors. I’m afraid to do the test of Rolling
a Marble. It might hit escape velocity. Everything in New York is
exercise; even getting from one part of a room to another. It’s just
that vertically oriented.

Perhaps it’s all fitting. New York doesn’t make much easy. (ok, well
I can think of a dozen counterexamples, but don’t make me bring those
up just now, like how easy it is to get a hot dog or find a one
of the 128 Starbucks in Manhattan) Perhaps the surface, the lumps and bumps, the
ever-present danger of tripping headlong into the path of a speeding
taxi, or the Cop I saw trip off a curb in Columbus Circle, landing on her
baton, are all important reminders.

They’re all reminders to keep alert, to keep that big-city intensity
going. Don’t get comfy. Always push (not literally, mind you,
because there’s another vibe in New York going on, which is the
constant balance of civility and aggression). Always assume the road
will be bumpy, and then watch some of the Amazonian 5′11″ women in
high heels navigate it with such style and grace that it makes you
shake your head in wonder.

They could never smooth out New York. If all of the curbs, streets,
and stairs got fixed (is fixed the correct word here? no! that
implies something is broken), New Yorkers would go soft! Can’t have that.

Here in March 2004, there are rumblings, little tidbits here and there
pointing towards some sort of Uber-iPod. Perhaps something that does
video.

New York must be the center of the iPod universe. It’s a cult, and I
am a card-carrying member. At least one on every subway car.. We
don’t pay dues. We space out. Oh, perhaps that’s too harsh. We
escape to a different time and place through music, because sometimes
the crush of the subway, the bustle of the streets, and so on, becomes
a bit much. I personally don’t do a lot of the outdoor-iPod thing, as
I still enjoy hearing most sounds New Yorkian (fear of getting run
over by a taxi contributes to this as well)

So what happens when one handheld device ups the ante significantly?
What happens when video, telephone, iPod, GPS, and Pocket PC/Palm
Pilot get glommed together?

I think it’s about to happen.

Within 2 years:

* OS, Pocket PC, or Palm OS - or maybe, just maybe, Linux. For
my example, I am going to assume that Apple will pull things
together

* Size - same as a current Treo (phone/palm/keyboard)

* Storage - 100 gigabytes, minimum

* Color - of course

* Video/Audio - full screen, limited to stereo. I see the potential
for an output jack that does video out and at least 5.1 audio, but
it’s pushing it for this time frame

- you should be able to orient all screen output to portrait
(most apps) or landscape (video playback) - any app should
handle either mode

* GPS - good, entry level to mid-level capability. Lat/Lon would be
fine to start with

* FW/USB - a small jack that opens up the device to USB 2.0 and
Firewire 400/800 devices (keyboards, card readers, etc.)

* Bluetooth - yes - should be able to use wireless keyboards, phone headsets

* Infrared - just because there are printers out there that would make
this worthwhile

* Telephone - yes, anywhere in world (cell phone networks, but not
satellite) - applicable data networks - high speed internet

* 802.11g - because, why settle for 802.11b?

* Keyboard - of course, because graffiti (Palm OS) and telephone touch
pads don’t cut it

* Camera - 3 megapixel resolution for still photos. Video with option
for DV output (most likely to an external FW drive that has the
speed to keep up with writing the stream).

* TV tuner, FM/AM radio - I mean, while we’re at it, right? A minimum
ability to get the weather channels would be very useful in some
locales.

Target price: $500

Ok, and the feeling over misplacing such a device? “Argghhhh!”

This should be available by Spring 2006. It seems like it’s pushing
it a bit, but I think all of the pieces exist right now in separate
small packages. Integrating them into something handheld would seem
to be the next logical techy holy grail.

To circle back to an earlier point, what happens when a significant
number of people start getting this amount of capability in their
grubby hands?

* more spacing out and bumping into each other? (you think I am kidding, huh?)

* citations given to individuals for “handheld video exhibition of porn”
(this is starting to happen to drivers)

* 802.11b/g + a camera means handheld videoconferencing - in other
words, forget a plain old voice call. You can sit in a
Starbucks, staring at a handheld device, seeing and hearing
someone at a Starbucks 2 blocks away! Video dating proximity
will be measured in GPS coodinates that tend to cluster around
WiFi hotspots.

* Your device contains your portable web site, A service will emerge
where your device advertises availability tied to GPS. Search
resumes amongst the people in your conference hall, This could
utilize ThereThen addresses

(update this entry…)

[in which it's evident that I'm out of practice writing ... need to
write my practice .. haven't writt... oh farken mother of Abraham
Lincoln already!]

So I’m not totally corporate. Never have been. As I sat down
tonight to write for a change, I thought of the conflicts between what
we do in a day that is so mainstream, versus what we can appreciate
that is decidedly not:

“I’ll take my PowerBook (Unix-loving rebel) to Starbucks (McDonalds of
gourmet coffee) to get a Mocha (just mainline me already) and write
while connected to a T-Mobile hotspot (WiFi loving nut, deciding that
$20/month is worth it, despite what I posted last year)” Oh, and I
work for AOL, because some companies I have to go back to once or
twice (Broderbund, Island Graphics, and AOL). I headed off in my New
Balance shod piggies.

The Starbucks of New York can only be separated with highly sophisticated GPS
equipment. Some are wall to wall laptop screens.

I could go on about all of the corporate influences throughout the day.
Sometimes I’m really conscious of it, and others I’m a blissful CostCo
sheep. We all have our reasons, right?

So a few not so mainstream things:

• I went to see The Barbarian Invasions again. I had seen it during the New York Film
  Festival, and highly recommend it. It’s at turns funny, touching, and
  heart-wrenching. How many films use heroin to good effect? French
  with subtitles (there, we just lost 80% of the population - which, in
  a way, is one of the points of the film). Check out “The Dreamers” and “City of God” while you’re at it.

• Jason Kottke’s mention of The Grey Album, by DJ Dangermouse. You should understand that I don’t appreciate most Rap. The Grey Album is a brilliant fusion of The Beatles “White Album” and Jay-Z’s “Black Album”. An old favorite from my childhood mixed with someone who has some obvious intelligence and talent. The floodgates are opening.
  The ’00’s are going to shape up to be a decade of found audio art.
  The Remix Cuisinarts (oh oh, a corporate reference…) are joining
  forces with BitTorrent, and the bits are flying out to the iPodden
  (another…) everywhere. Fuck radio. The real innovation is
  happening in little studios on Macs, piped out to the Net 24/7.

• I’m winding my way through Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, having made it to the era of The New York Dolls. I have to restrain myself from skipping ahead to the bits about The Ramones.

There’s probably some concluding point to all of this. Here is one:
In America, or at least in New York, you would be hard-pressed to get
through a day without being bombarded with Corporate messages of all
kinds. Billboards pulsate. Radios blare. Messages scroll. So take
some time every day to turn your back to it, and relish that.